Last Updated May 14, 1998
Hey folks, we have a great opportunity right now to get new off-highway vehicle (OHV) trails here in San Diego County. In order for this to happen it will require the support of the off-roaders and as many other folks as we can get. The San Diego Off-Road Coalition (SDORC) urges you to join us in working on this because it is the best opportunity we have ever had to establish much needed additional OHV trails in the County. With your help it CAN HAPPEN and can lead to more OHV trails and areas in the future. Please read on for information on what you can do in supporting this important matter to all off-roaders. The County of San Diego is scheduled to release the Off-Highway Vehicle Route Location Study around the first of May for a 90 day public comment period. We need as many people in San Diego County as possible to help by providing positive comments on the Study and support for OHV trails to the county. You can become involved at whatever level is comfortable to you and with whatever time you have available. The SDORC is going to be working hard on this issue but we need mass support from the public to convince the County Board of Supervisors (BoS) that the trails are needed and that they will not have a negative effect on our environment. Positive support for the Route Location Study will also help give credibility towards the need for more OHV park areas in the county which the Coalition is also working on This Study is the result of efforts by the County, at the urging of the off-road community, over the last few years to establish a county wide OHV trails system. In June of 1992 the BoS authorized a study to determine the feasibility of developing an OHV trails plan for the County. In March of 1994 that study was presented to the BoS and they authorized the preparation of an OHV Route Location Study and environmental assessment. The consultant Kawasaki, Theilaker, Uneo and Associates (KTU&A) was contracted in April 1995 to do the Study. At a meeting last April 30th the BoS were presented a status report on the Study, which had been temporarily halted, and they authorized it be continued and completed. Over 300 OHVers packed into the County Administration Building on Pacific Highway to hear and comment on it and this overwhelming show of support convinced the County to go forward with it. Copies of the Study are going to be distributed to various public agencies such as county planning and sponsor groups, public information centers like libraries, government services that will be affected like the County Department of Public Works, State Department of Fish and Game, U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service and to some of the user groups including the San Diego Off-Road Coalition. For information on where you can go to review the plan or to inquire about receiving a copy contact Jeff Bosvay at the County Department of Public Works at (619) 694-3266 or sbosv0pw@co.san-diego.ca.us. There may be a fee to purchase a copy of the complete plan but I have heard there might be an Executive Summary of the Study which may be available for free. If you can you need to get together with a group that is reviewing the Study or go to a place that has it available and see what it says about trails being planned in the county and in particular trails in your area. The study is also supposed to include the results of a number of questionnaires that were sent out to various groups and were available to individuals to fill out and send in. Some of you probably completed one and mailed it in. Look for the results of these too. It is very important that you review the Study to see if trails you would like to use are included as proposed routes and that you support them. The most effective thing you can do during this comment period is to review the Study, attend public meetings where it is being discussed, voice your support for it and provide individual written comments that address specific items in the Study. The easiest way to review it is in a group setting where it can be divided up and subgroups or individuals can take separate sections to review and report on it to the whole group. The information presented from the subgroups can be used by all in preparing their comments. If you belong to an off-road club, coalition, group or work for a business that is involved in off-roading you need to bring this issue to their attention as soon as possible and get to work on it. The least you should do is provide written comments to your local County Supervisor. For information on who this would be please contact the County Administration Center at (619) 531-5700. Give them your zip code and they will tell you who your Supervisor is and they can give you their phone number, mailing address and email address. (Or check the Board of Supervisor's WEB pages and Email addresses listed at the bottom - WebEd) If you live in the unincorporated area of the county (not in a city) then you probably have a land use planning or sponsor group that may be reviewing this issue and presenting their recommendations to the County. You can find out about this group by contacting your County Supervisor's office. It is very important that you contact this group and find out how and where their agendas are published, watch for this issue to be included in the agenda and attend those meetings to voice your support. Many of the planning/sponsor groups have already expressed their opposition to the OHV Route Location Study because we did not have anyone at the meetings where it was previously heard. With a strong showing of support by us at future meetings we can turn this around. Please find out about and attend these meetings with as many neighbors, friends and relatives as you can. Please keep in mind that this Study involves two types of routes and their suitability for particular areas and vehicles are different. Common sense and being reasonable will hopefully help in deciding where the routes will be placed. We are not sure how they will be identified to prevent confusion but there are distinctions between them that must be defined. Here are the general definitions: All OHV routes will most likely be open to all street legal/licensed vehicles such as sport utility vehicles (SUV), dual sport (DS) motorcycles and all other highway licensed vehicles within reason. The majority of these routes will be existing County truck trails and roads (paved and unpaved), Forest Service roads and in a few cases County and State highways (in order to connect between OHV routes.) Since these will already be existing routes that are open to the public this program only serves to place designations for them on maps and to provide monetary support for additional maintenance. A smaller subset of the OHV routes will also be designated for use by what may be referred to as off-road vehicles (ORV) which are the non-highway legal vehicles which are registered with "green stickers" in California. These vehicles include dirt motorcycles, ATVs, dune buggies and other non-street legal motorized vehicles that will be required to have the green sticker registration. These types of routes will usually be placed away from residential areas and areas that are heavily used by street legal vehicles in order to avoid possible conflicts. There may also be further restrictions on some of these routes and trails as to the particular types of vehicles that can use them (motorcycles only on narrow trails) or on age limits and drivers license requirements on routes that are shared with street legal vehicles. All of this may sound a bit complicated but it really isn't. The main thing is that the County has a study it is releasing for review by the public regarding OHV routes and trails in the County. We need to have a strong showing of support in order to counteract the opposition that there is sure to be and to show the County that we want more trails. With everyone's help we can succeed with this. Please feel free to contact the San Diego Off-Road Coalition with questions you may have on how you can help with this. Also check out our site to stay up to date on this issue and join the Coalition to help us continue the fight for our OHV rights. Phone numbers, email addresses and webpage information is shown below for your convenience.